 From Dr. TimothyWhat is victory - - really? What is victory in spiritual terms and do we
realize that the spiritual must take place in order for victory in any level to
manifest?
Perhaps in
order to clearly understand spiritual victory (or victory on the spiritual level)
we must first understand one important truth … every conflict originates in (or
results from) the spiritual realm! In
fact, every conflict we ever experience is a manifestation in the “natural
realm” of what is – or has been – taking place in the spiritual realm! Therefore, every victory must first be
achieved in the spiritual realm before we can experience it in the other areas
of our lives!
Our basis
for this statement is found in Scripture, Daniel 10:12-13 “Then said he unto
me, Fear not, Daniel: for from the first day that thou didst set thine heart to
understand and to chasten thyself before thy God, thy words were heard, and I
am come for thy words. But the prince of
the kingdom of Persia withstood me one and twenty days: but, lo, Michael, one
of the chief princes, came to help me; and I remained there with the kings of
Persia.”
In fact,
the greatest victory we can ever experience – salvation – was established in
the heavenly realm long before Christ actually died on the cross! See:
Hebrews 4; 1 Peter 1:18-21; Rev. 13:1-9.
The point
of this is that if we are to experience and live in the reality of victory, we
must see things from God’s perspective – transforming our thinking to God’s way
of thinking! God sees victory far
differently than we do, so if we are to experience victory God’s way, we must
agree with God’s definition of victory!
The human’s
intellect (carnal minds) see victory as overpowering (being stronger than) the
enemy facing us, thus to be victorious we must subdue who/what threatens us. But what does God say?
First, He
says when confronted by a threat to humble ourselves! Are you ready for this? Humbling ourselves in the face of an enemy is
to admit, even declare, that the enemy of _____________ is stronger than we are
and is fully able to defeat us and because of this we have the great need for
The Lord to fight the battle for us! The
Lord will tell us what actions we are to take, but we must only take the
actions that HE tells us to take and ONLY those actions/steps and none other!
In all of the
New Testament, you will not find instruction or directives to take on the
enemies or to rebuke the devils or enemies that come against you! Now this flies in the face of decades of
popular teaching but search for yourself and see what Scripture says!
What you
will find is that we are to spend our time and energies drawing near to God
rather than facing the enemy! Study
James 4 and perhaps you will begin to see an entirely different scenario than
popular warfare teachings give us!
First – we
are to submit ourselves to God, not submit ourselves to the battle!
Second –
we are to resist the devil … resist not fight!
Study it out and you will begin to see that resist means to refrain from
being drawn in to a fight that we cannot win!
Refrain from being drawn into a struggle that the devil has set the
terms and conditions of the battle!
Third –
draw near to God and He will draw near to you!
See this! If you are fighting the
devil there is no way you can be drawing near to God because your focus is on
the devil (or other enemy)! But, if you
shift your focus from doing battle to drawing near to God, then in response God
is drawing near to you … AND the nearer He gets to you the nearer He is getting
to the devil and that is something that the devil just cannot stand! Thus, he flees from you!
No wonder
the Lord wants us to understand that the battle is His! His is the perfect battle plan for our
benefit!
Which
brings us to the definition of true victory - - God’s strategy for our
benefit! Who has the wisdom to defeat
the devil, you or God? Who has the
proven track record of 100% wins against the devil, you or Jesus?
The
problem we have is that we just do not want to admit that we are powerless
against the enemies of our souls and lives!
It just seems that we should have enough strength to defeat the devil
and/or situations that assault us in the course of our lives!
Certainly
we should be strong enough to conquer temptation, right? Not according to God! God tells us that when hit with temptation,
instead of trying to withstand the pressure to succumb, there is an exit plan
that God provides for us to ESCAPE!
See: 1 Corinthians 10:13.
Thus, here
too we must redefine success to God’s strategy for our benefit! Human thinking says that victory over
temptation is to not succumb to temptation’s pressure being able to take all
that is dished out! God’s definition of
victory is to escape the situation!
Next Issue - The Conclusion
Many Blessings!
Dr. Timothy
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